


Kill Switch

by EruGhostCat, Neph Moreau (NephthysMoon)



Series: Torchsong Series [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Multiple Shepards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-06-08 11:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6853378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EruGhostCat/pseuds/EruGhostCat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NephthysMoon/pseuds/Neph%20Moreau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>kill switch: a security device used to shut off any other device in an emergency situation in which a normal shut down is not possible.</p><p>In the aftermath of the Cerberus Coup, EDI finds an alternative to the Crucible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kill Switch

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Doctor and the Catalyst](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/197035) by Red Baron A.K.A. Crowley. 



> This story owes more debts than I can count. First and foremost, to ThePetrichist, for allowing me to borrow Elliot Shepard (the hag). To LadyA and Ny, who have been amazing betas. LadyA stepped in and did an amazing turn around when Ny was unavailable and I adore her for this. Ny came back just as I got the first beta’d version back and said ‘I don’t know the fandom, but I’ll look it over’. This story would be lesser – much lesser – without the two of them. To erughostcat, who saw this and decided she’d like to work with me on it – she has been a treasure. I actually added a line, just days before posting, for her, because she has done so much for me. Now, for literary debts: I owe much to the movie Independence Day. It’s not hard to spot where in the movie I drew inspiration from. Another huge debt is to Red Baron A.K.A. Crowley’s DW/ME crossover, The Doctor and the Catalyst. Reading that triggered this idea and I’m SO glad it did. Final debt is to htewing: without this woman, I would never have even heard of Mass Effect. I blame you, so many times, for me being here, but I forget I should be thanking you, as well. This is the village that raised this ’child’. And it took every single one of you.

Elliot Shepard stared at the dull, gray ceiling of the crew quarters. Beneath her short, red curls, her eyes were narrowed in concentration, and her freckles stood out prominently on her unnaturally pale skin. A tech expert, she was comfortable with artificial intelligence in a way that few organics were, and it was that part of her – the part that saw life in what others considered lines of code – that mourned. If her cousin was to be believed, Legion was one of the first geth to take up arms in defense of an agricultural platform against the quarians. Legion had apparently answered the question in the same slightly awkward way he’d explained his reasoning for patching himself with her armor. But now he was gone, having gained sentience – actual synthetic life, not the shared consensus of normal geth – just in time to die.

The door to her quarters on Deck Three, the one Liara originally commandeered before Ari moved the Asari to the unused cargo bay off engineering, now pinged, a soft chime to alert her of someone requesting entry.

Knowing that EDI, their own AI, would hear her and unlock the door, she called, “Come in!” and lifted her head off the pillows to get a better view of the door.

The doors separated—and while it was probably _meant_ to be a structurally sound split, Ellie honestly it found a bit ridiculous—to reveal the perfectly voluptuous form of EDI herself. Even clad in a black science officer’s uniform, the curves that had so distracted most of the crew when the AI had first taken over the mech were visible.

“EDI?” Ellie frowned. The AI could choose to converse with her without the mech present – there were a number of times that she’d carried on a conversation with her while the physical body was still sitting on the bridge. “Can I help you with something?”

The AI stood outside the door, a slim datapad in hand. “I believe you can, Shepard. May I come in?”

“Of course.” Elliot pushed off the bed and crossed the room, joining EDI at the small, round table under the window. “What’s on your mind?”

“The Reapers,” EDI said, without preamble. The past few weeks had accustomed the crew to her lack of tact or reaction to social cues – they all pretty much just ran with it, now.

“That seems to be all any of us are thinking about anymore.”

“I have been monitoring the transmissions between the quarian ships.” There was a hint of something Ellie would have identified as uncertainty in her voice, if she thought a being made of logic and code could doubt itself. “Shepard, may I ask you a question?”

Even though Ellie had always wanted to be the one who followed in her mother's footsteps, become Captain Shepard and have her own ship, the past few years had actually made her grateful for the career-ending injury she'd received on Akuze. Instead, it was her cousin, the Indomitable Commander Arien Shepard, who had to make the tough calls—leaving the Council to die during Sovereign’s attack, destroying the Collector Base past the Omega-4 Relay, brokering peace between the various species – and last, but certainly not least – answering the increasingly uncomfortable ethical questions of the fledgling AI.

“Is Ari busy?” It was a stalling tactic, nothing more. Once EDI had a question in mind, she would ask it whether the person was ready or not, always prefaced by her innocuous query.

“She is currently on the QEC with Councilor Iressa.”

“And it can’t wait, I suppose,” Ellie said, sighing. “Alright, go ahead, EDI.”

The shiny, metallic face frowned, and Ellie sat up straighter in her chair. “Do you believe we will finish the Crucible in time to stop the Reapers?”

It was like the butt of a krogan shotgun to the gut; not that she hadn’t’ asked herself the same thing hundreds, if not thousands of times since meeting up with Liara on Mars, but it was something that no one on the Normandy would say aloud. They needed what little hope they could find to sustain them.

She took a deep breath. “I have to, EDI. Ari, Hackett, Anderson – we all have to believe that this will work, that we’re doing the right thing, or what is this all for?”

EDI was silent for several moments, a clear sign she was processing. “I see.” Another long pause, though this one came across less – synthetic. EDI looked down at the datapad, still gripped in her leather-gloved fingers, and then back up at her. “Shepard, what if I told you another solution could potentially exist?”

“I’d wonder why you were telling me, and not Ari, for starters.” Something EDI said earlier pinged in the back of her mind – a few hundred years ago, she might have said that a lightbulb had gone off. “Does this have anything to do with the communications between the quarians?”

“It does. I do not approve of Admiral Xen’s disregard for synthetic life, but some of her ideas have merit.” She tapped the datapad and passed it across the table. “In this report to the Admiralty Board, Admiral Xen states that she cannot complete her research into a virus to destroy the Reapers without the Reaper code from a live geth specimen, and the Commander’s protection of the geth is destroying the galaxy’s chance to defeat the Reapers on what she believes is a fool’s quest. It is clear that Admiral Xen does not believe in the Crucible, and she resents the stoppage of her research into what she calls a Reaper virus.”

Ellie scanned the report – it was exactly as EDI said. While highly interesting, if unsurprising given Xen’s rather perverse proclivities, she didn’t see what was so important – oh. Oh! “A virus! Of course!”

“We have the Reaper IFF, and it has been modified to resemble Reaper code precisely. I was created with Reaper tech; there are remnants still in the AI Core. If we could reverse engineer these things to create such a virus, we would not be limited to pulling code from live geth, as Admiral Xen is attempting.” EDI sounded – uncertain – again.

Ellie put the datapad on the table and stood. “We need to tell Ari.”

“Please wait, Shepard.” EDI placed a hand on her arm. “I have spent a significant amount of processing power calculating the probabilities of our success in this war. That remains quite low, but Commander Shepard is still our best chance and should remain focused on her mission. If she is distracted by other possibilities, our chances of success in either venture drop drastically – they are non-existent, Shepard.”

As Ellie thought back on the past few weeks, she was forced to concede the point. Ever since they’d left Mars, Ari had been single-minded in her focus on the Crucible. It was almost frightening, really, but that focus had given Ari the drive to form an alliance between the turians and the krogan – and the quarians and the geth. If she discovered there was another possible solution, she might lose that focus and, if she and EDI were wrong, the entire galaxy might suffer.

Ellie sat back down. “Say you’re right,” she said slowly, pondering over the possibilities. “Say we can write a virus that will take down the Reapers. How would we distribute it?”

“When I was first installed on the Normandy, the black box recordings from the SR-1 were made a part of my permanent database; they are currently part of the AI Core. In those recordings was an audio feed from the Commander’s helmet on Ilos. The Prothean VI, Vigil, mentioned that Sovereign could send a signal through the Citadel – to trigger the Keepers to begin the extinction cycle. If a Reaper can signal the Citadel, then the Citadel should, logically, be able to signal the Reapers.” There was a charming hesitance in her voice, but Ellie was nodding.

“It makes perfect sense. Utilizing the Reaper tech we already have, we should be able to debilitate them, at the very least. Even if all we can do is bring down their barriers and weapons, the fleets could take them out without trouble.” She grinned. “EDI, this just might work!”

“We still do not know how to reverse the signal to the Citadel,” she pointed out, but Ellie flapped her hand dismissively.

“We’ll sort that out when we get there. There was some sort of Master Control Unit on the Presidium. Isheel owes us both a favor. We were there with Ari when she saved her life. She’ll let us look around.” Ellie looked around the room, suddenly wishing she’d kept all the tech Liara shoved in her quarters before she understood (after a very pointed chat with Ari) that these were not to be _her_ quarters, and she did not, in fact, have free run of the ship. “We need to get to the AI Core and start on that virus.”

There was something nagging at her though, and she finally pinpointed it – it had been niggling in her mind ever since EDI mentioned the virus, but she’d brushed it aside in her excitement. Now, however, she had to know. “EDI, you could very easily write this virus on your own. Why ask for my help?”

EDI grinned; there was no other word for it. “The Commander insisted that I discuss ideas which organics might find radical with a member of the crew before implementing them. She originally suggested either herself or Jeff, but I judged them both to have other distractions that would be detrimental to the successful outcome of the Crucible project. Also, your skill with electronics is nearly synthetic.”

Ellie let the compliment wash over her. “Thanks, EDI. Let’s get to work.”

* * *

Arien Shepard wasn’t an idiot. At sixteen, she’d survived, due to a combination of uncontrolled biotics and sheer rage, while the rest of her colony had been killed or taken into slavery. She’d held back waves of batarian slavers armed with nothing but her biotics and a borrowed assault rifle – while on shore leave, at twenty-two. She'd finished the N7 program at twenty-eight, and been promoted to her first shipside command at twenty-nine. An idiot couldn’t have accomplished all of that, not even fueled by biotics and rage.

Which was why it did not escape her attention that her XO and the ship’s AI frequently disappeared into the AI Core.

If fifteen years of living in each other’s pockets had taught her anything about her cousin, it was that Ellie would tell her what she was doing in her own good time. Unfortunately, Elliot Shepard's 'own good time' usually wasn't within the very short window Ari had patience for. She thought – she _hoped_ – they were working on discovering the Catalyst. The Catalyst was why they were heading back to the Citadel – Councilor Iressa had promised information, and Ari was damn sure going to collect on that debt. The Asari had kept their blue asses out of the whole war, for the most part, and Ari felt they owed whatever information they had – they’d certainly held onto it long enough.

While she’d never ascribed to Cerberus’ ‘humans first’ policy, there had been times, over the past few years especially, she could understand their fury at the other races. The Asari held themselves up as bastions of wisdom and peace – if maidens spending hundreds of years terrorizing the galaxy in mercenary bands, or stripping for the amusement of the shadier aspects of the galaxy could be considered peace. It was hypocritical in the extreme. The only reason the Asari were so peaceful was that they lived so bloody long. The krogan – well, Ari’d always felt a special bond with the krogan. They didn’t bullshit, they didn’t bother with diplomacy. They charged – usually head-first – into what they wanted. Granted, it had gotten them all but sterilized in the long run, but it was an approach she could respect. She had nothing against the salarians – the few she’d had a chance to work with closely, save for, perhaps, the Dalatrass were all good people.

She feared and respected the geth. As a species, they were still in their infancy, growing from a rather impressive collective intelligence into more distinct personalities and obtaining true synthetic ‘life’. They were a formidable enemy, and a powerful ally – which was why she’d never, to quote James, ‘got’ the quarians.

'The geth, even while achieving sentience, had not been openly hostile Curious, yes – but not hostile. The quarians’ actions escalated into violence what could have been the first cohabitation of organic and synthetic life into violence. For three centuries, they maintained their hatred of their own creations, who had wanted nothing more than to exist. She had never, once, blamed the geth for fighting back during the ‘Morning War’ – though she hadn’t been particularly fond of the heretics who followed the Reapers.

And the turians – well, Garrus and Victus had gone a long way towards mitigating her anger at the seemingly-vicious way the turians had attacked humanity during the First Contact War – but even her father had feared the growing power of the Alliance fleeing his home world and settling with his wife first on Eden Prime and later on Mindoir, to escape the Alliance’s stranglehold. All in the name of protecting himself and his family from the Alliance. In many ways, the Alliance was no better than Cerberus – and given that Cerberus had sprung from the Alliance…well, she felt that said a lot for the Alliance’s attitude towards non-humans.

Still, none of this was getting her any closer to the Catalyst, or to finding out what her cousin and EDI were doing holed up in the AI Core day in and day out. Without bothering to poke her head into the AI Core, Ari headed, instead, for her quarters on deck four. In addition to Iressa, the Asari councilor, she had a few stops of her own to make on the Citadel, and she wanted to get at least a little sleep.

When the doors of her private apartment opened, she headed, not for the bed, but the dual console on the desk in her office nook. The current state of their war assets was something she felt the need to review at least once a day. The strength of the allied fleet heading towards the confrontation with the Reapers on Earth was a testament to how much she had accomplished in just a few short weeks. She tapped the console, verifying the numbers that both the quarians and the geth were reporting to Hackett. Neither was quite as high as she'd have liked, but they were respectable, and that was all she could ask.

The indicator for the other terminal was flashing, and she turned her attention to that, instead. EDI filtered the messages for her, prioritizing anything that could have an impact on the war effort, and filtering out most spam, while still making sure that any news articles regarding selected key words were sent.

An article on indoctrination she scanned through quickly – she should have known better than to spare that stupid Asari on both Virmire and Korlus – Ellie's do-gooder influence no doubt. The next message was from Hackett – Ari groaned. She’d been suspicious of the man for years, and this particular bit of news was a kick in the gut. A researcher, on the Citadel, who had been trying to prove the existence of Reapers – why couldn’t Hackett have pulled this guy out of his pocket years ago, instead of waiting until the Reapers were already demolishing Earth? She rolled her eyes – she’d go visit this Dr. Bryson when she had a few minutes to breathe – maybe after she’d seen Iressa.

She opened the last unread message and swore.

“EDI, can you ask Elliot to join me?”

“She is on her way, Commander.”

She finished reading her messages; nothing else of high import had come through while she was busy, and she tapped her fingers against the arm of the black leather sofa. Ari was not looking forward to sharing this with Ellie.

“EDI says you cursed at her.”

Ari looked over her shoulder towards the door, where the shorter, red-haired woman leaned casually. “I didn’t curse at her.” She rolled her eyes and pulled two beers from the small fridge under the desk. It was completely against regulations, but she wasn’t much for the hide-bound rules of the Alliance anyway. Ellie followed her to the little living area of the loft and dropped into the sofa opposite hers.

“What’s wrong?”

Ari settled deeper into the black leather. “We’re running out of time, and I’ve got two priority missions that need to be handled immediately. There’s a scientist on the Citadel that’s been studying Reapers; apparently he’s found something and asked Hackett to send someone.”

“And that bastard wants you to do it. Fine. What do you need me to do?” Ellie took a long swig of her beer.

“Talk to this scientist. Hackett doesn’t need to know which Commander Shepard the guy deals with. And he really won’t approve of what I’ll be doing while you’re helping this guy out.” Without further explanation, she passed a datapad to her cousin.

Ellie scanned it quickly. “Ahh. So, ‘it’s that time’, is it? Always knew she’d try to call in some sort of favor from you in retaliation for that whole thing with Patriarch.”

Ari shrugged. “I’m not keen on Cerberus having the run of Omega. If helping the Queen Bitch out means we get access to Omega’s resources, or even just prevent Cerberus from controlling them, I’ll do it. But, better me than you.”

Ari didn’t voice the real reason for not sending Ellie to Omega; her cousin’s dislike of the Asari Queen lay less in her personality and more in her methods. Ellie preferred to see violence as a last resort while Aria was a keen proponent of it. Ari’s morals were more flexible than her cousin’s. Better to send the redhead to deal with scientists than force her to put her honor at risk.

“What about that whole ‘one of us should be on the ship at all times’ line you were spouting earlier?”

“Needs must when the devil drives, hag.”

“Oh? Is he the one on the bridge, then?” Ellie’s look was utterly innocent, but she wasn’t fooled.

“I’m telling Joker.”

“Telling your boyfriend on me? Isn’t that cute.”

They continued on for a few minutes, until neither of them could breathe for laughing.

* * *

Joker checked his omni-tool again. “Anything, EDI?”

Three days before, Cortez had taken Ari to meet with Aria, and he’d been left behind with the ship. They were supposed to wait for her on the Citadel; instead, he was orbiting a water world and trying desperately not to think about how much trouble the commander had to be in after three days of radio silence (and he was really, _really_ trying not to think about that whole Alpha Relay disaster). The only thing that was stopping him from abandoning Ellie’s shore party was the burly marine on his left.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t worried about Ellie, too. He was. Probably just as worried as James, come to the point, but that Spidey-sense at the base of his skull, the one that let him know when Kasumi was sneaking around the bridge, that the ship that had torn apart his first baby wasn’t friendly, that the shake-down run all those years ago was going to be a big deal – that Spidey-sense was going haywire at the thought of Ari on Omega.

If he’d had his way, the Normandy and all of her crew would have waited, as ordered, on the Citadel, until Ari returned. Instead, Ellie had him flying to weird asteroids and planets where Harvesters swarmed like locusts in the sky. Which led them here, following a dangerous lead on a Reaper-killer, while Ellie, Kaidan, and Javik were on what little surface the planet below held, trying to find this Reaper-Killer, while he kept the Normandy in orbit and tried not to lose his mind.

They’d lost communications with the shore party almost five hours ago; James was arguing to send the mako down after them, and to hell with the fact that there was no appreciable land to put the mako on. Hell, if _his_ girlfriend was down there, Joker suspected he’d be driving the mako himself. Instead, _his_ girlfriend was marauding about with the Queen of Omega, fighting Cerberus without any backup. Aria never really struck him as a ‘team player’; for all intents and purposes, Ari was on her own, and he didn’t like it.

“Madre de Dios, Joker, if anything happens to her, I will kill you myself.”

Joker wasn’t really one to freak out over threats from people stronger than he was – the number of times Ari threatened to kill him in a week was enough to get that fear out of him, quickly. Besides, giant, hairy marines were nowhere near as scary as a five-eight biotic with serious anger management issues. If he was really lucky, Ari’d have worked that out of her system beating the shit out of Cerberus goons on Omega.

“Lieutenant Vega, as I have told you repeatedly, there is nowhere to land the mako. Perhaps if you had not crashed the other shuttle on Mars, you would have a way down there.”

Joker had to stifle a laugh at EDI – he loved when she got snarky with someone else; not so much when she did with him. James muttered deprecations on everything from EDI’s lack of emotion to her Cerberus origins, but thankfully, the AI pretended not to hear him. Her fights with Javik were becoming legendary; Ari had to intervene more than once.

“Holy shit!”

Joker looked up at Vega’s words, immediately echoing the sentiment. Rushing towards the surface of the planet below them were two Sovereign-class Reapers, weird little leg-things spread wide in preparation for an attack with their main weapons.

“We need to get down there!”

“Jeff, there was an unusual energy reading right before we lost contact with the shore party. It is possible that whatever caused our communications loss will affect the Normandy, too.”

“Do we care?” James asked, leaning his impressive bulk threateningly over the AI – the AI that was currently locking him out of the controls!

“Dammit, EDI!” Joker shouted, tapping the liquid crystal screen so hard he fractured a finger, to no avail – she’d locked the ship down tighter than a virgin on her wedding night.

“ – ore party to Normandy!” The voice was crackled, but unmistakably female, and James slumped against the wall. “Come in, Normandy.”

“Normandy to shore party, we read you. What the hell happened down there?” Joker frowned as the screen in front of him lost its static and Shepard’s face came into focus.

“Long story. Have we heard from Ari?”

He didn’t know how to tell her no, but she took his silence as its own answer and nodded. “Aria’s a tough broad; she’ll keep Ari safe. She knows what’s at risk.”

"So, tell me about this Leviathan. You know, just for the record, I thought this was a bad idea from the start." Ellie laughed at him – it was at least the third time he'd said that.

"I can't even begin to process it, Joker. The Reapers...Leviathan created the Reapers. I think my helmet feed was still recording - I'll show you all later."

He took a moment to really look at her, and nodded. "Vegas! Take your girlfriend to bed, she looks like shit."

Ellie laughed again and cut the feed, with Vegas patting him on the shoulder before he left, no doubt to meet the shuttle in the cargo bay.

"Should we head for the Omega relay?"

He looked over at EDI, wondering how she'd read his mind – if that was some new freaky power of hers that came from that mech, he was taking Javik's advice and chucking it out of the airlock. As much as he wanted to go to Omega and check on Ari, he knew that she'd kill him for even thinking she wasn't capable of handling herself on what basically amounted to a solo mission.

"Ari said rendezvous at the Citadel. That's where we'll meet her."

* * *

Tired, sore, and dirty, Ari staggered into a rack Bailey was nice enough to scrounge up for her in the C-Sec barracks. The mesh bodysuit she wore under her armor was stained white from sweat where it pooled down her spine, under her breasts and arms, in her groin, and her feet. Her armor lay in a heap on the floor. The room was private – Bailey wasn't about to let anyone in with her because he couldn't take the risk that he had an indoctrinated officer on his payroll – so she stripped out of the bodysuit and the plain black sports bra and cotton panties under it. She still stank, but she was too tired to care much about that.

Her omni-tool woke her after only a few hours. "Ari?"

She rolled onto her side and groaned. "Joker?"

"That's me. Station readings show you at C-Sec headquarters. Need me to bust you out?" He paused, and then laughed a little. "By that, of course, I mean do you need me to send Shepard and Vegas to come bust you out?"

"I'm fine – Bailey lent me a rack. But you could send Ellie with some clean clothes for me. I think we'll stay docked here for a day or two. We all need our rest."

"She's on her way." The silence was so long she thought he'd closed the link. "Come home soon, Ari. Joker out."

She smiled in the darkness of the barracks. That was her Joker – only sweet when there was no one around to hear him. She let herself drift into a light doze while she waited for her cousin to bring the clothes.

"The armor's trashed," was the first thing Ellie said when she stepped into the room. Ari shrugged; it was standard issue Alliance armor – not her usual choice for combat, but something Ellie had talked her into. Ari's preferred armor was a special order Ellie had made for her while she was incarcerated; she still didn't know how her cousin had talked her way out of a cell beside hers.

"Not mine anyway," she said. "How'd it go with Bryson?"

She stepped into the en suite shower; Bailey must have given up his own quarters for her. She sent a silent thank you to the man as the hot water rushed over her, rinsing the dried sweat down the drain.

"Bryson's dead," Ellie said from the doorway and she turned to face the redhead. "His assistant was indoctrinated. Well, it's not exactly indoctrination. Bryson and his team found this thing – Leviathan. It killed a Reaper."

Ellie had Ari’s full attention now; the water sluiced through her long black hair as she stared.

"We know it's possible," Ari said slowly, thinking of the two large Reapers they'd recently taken down – and Sovereign.

"Ari – they created the Reapers. The Leviathan."

In the silence after her words, the water seemed incredibly loud as it pounded against the steel flooring of the shower.

"They – created – the Reapers? Did we drop a nuke on them? I know how fond Joker is of nuking things from orbit." They shared a smile at his oft-repeated quip.

"The Leviathans created an AI. The AI went rogue and created a Reaper from them – they were the first 'harvest'. The Reapers were created in the image of the Leviathans."

"Harbinger," Ari spat, turning the water off and reaching for a towel.

"Harbinger." It was agreement, nothing more.

"So – what you're saying is they rebelled against their creators?" Ari raised an eyebrow at her cousin.

"In a sense, yes. The 'intelligence' as they call it was created to find a way for organics and synthetics to live together in peace. It's apparently still trying to find that solution." Ellie shrugged. "Honestly? It sounded like a shitty idea to begin with, and knowing that it created the Reapers makes me that much more determined to see them dead."

Ari dressed and looked down at the sweaty pile of bodysuit and armor on the floor. "I will pay Bailey to get rid of that." She groaned.

"He could sell it to the masses and fund the Citadel Defense Team!" Ellie said, poking her in the side.

"Yeah, go ask him if he wants it or if he wants to collect money to trash it, but I'm too damn tired to haul it back to the ship."

"I'll send James down to come get it." Ellie typed a quick message on her 'tool and nodded. "Let's get you to bed, Commander Ma’am."

Ari rolled her eyes, but followed Ellie through the station to the ship. The Normandy's hull had never been so appealing to her: not picking her up from a firefight on Earth, not swooping down to save the day on Mars, not even—eh, she couldn't really remember every time the ship had come in to save the day, but right now, she was sure it had never looked better. From the airlock, she spotted Joker, still on the bridge, and she offered him a quick wave before Ellie dragged her to the elevator, through the doors to her quarters, and to bed.

"Sleep, baby cousin." Ellie perched on the empty side of the bed, stroking the long, black strands out of her face. "I'll fill you in on the Leviathan in a bit, but you need to get some rest."

"Night, you old hag."

She woke up in a cold sweat not long after Ellie left; the same damn dream, over and over – it was driving her mad. Chasing ghosts through the same forest she'd hid in during the attack on Mindoir, hearing her parents, her friends, her cousin calling out to her, begging her for help but she can't find them. She rubbed her forehead, trying to brush away the lingering horror of the dream.

The door to her quarters chimed, and she called for whoever it was to come in; EDI wouldn't have allowed them up to her quarters without being invited unless it was fairly important.

Ellie strode in, a wide smile on her face and a tray of food in her hands; apparently they'd restocked on the Citadel, because that wasn't the usual reheated cardboard chicken.

She nodded towards the coffee table and joined Ellie on the sofa. "Spill."

As Ellie filled her in on everything that happened, from finding Bryson in his lab, tracking down Garneau, and then later rescuing Ann Bryson, who led them directly to the Leviathans, Ari demolished the chicken sandwich and fries; definitely not Normandy food. She grinned – and then frowned, thinking of all the starving refugees in makeshift shelters on the docks while she lounged on leather sofas and ate well. Ellie’s concerns, particularly about what this so-called ‘apex race’ would do after the Reapers had been defeated, were enough to bring her attention back to the conversation at hand.

"I don't like it any more than you do, Ellie, but we need all the allies we can get. One galactic war at a time, okay? We can worry about this weird Leviathan thing being a threat after we've taken care of the Reapers. Which reminds me: we're headed to Thessia in a few hours."

Ellie looked at her with one eyebrow raised.

"Fucking Asari bureaucrats. The Councilor thinks there's an artifact on Thessia that will help us locate the Catalyst, but she won't tell me what it is, or how it will help."

"They're not all bad," Ellie tried, but Ari rolled her eyes.

"Name me three Asari who have actually been somewhat useful to us?"

"Samara. Liara." Ellie paused. "Shiala and Sha'ira. Ha! That's four!"

Ari snorted. "Okay, but can you name five?"

* * *

Ari settled into the sofa, smirking at her cousin, and Ellie knew she thought she had her with that one. She wracked her mind, trying to figure out a way around it. Finally, Ellie’s blue eyes lit up. “That one – on Illium. She helped you find Thane.

The instant the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Thane had been a sore subject for Ari even before his unfortunate death. While Ari had been fond of him, she never put much effort into building a relationship with him. It was stupid, she’d said, to fall in love with someone who had an expiration date.

It didn’t, however, mean that the dark-haired woman had come to grips with his death.

For the sake of her cousin’s pride, Ellie pretended not to notice the stray tear she brushed away.

“So, Thessia?” she asked, grateful to change the topic.

“Some sort of Asari artifact. I didn’t get much more from her.” Ari shrugged and settled herself more deeply into the sofa. “I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

“It’s probably Prothean. Everything that seems to help us against the Reapers turns out to be Prothean.” Ari snorted at her words, and Ellie smiled. The other woman needed the amusement. “Who are you taking with you?”

“Well, I’d probably have to knock Liara unconscious before she’d let me leave her, so there’s one. If you’re right about it being Prothean, I probably should consider taking Javik. Iressa thought it would lead to the Catalyst, and if it is Prothean, having him with me would only make sense. The Reapers are launching small strikes against Thessia, so I don’t want to take too many people.”

Alliance regulations stated that special ops commanders take no more than two members of their team into any given spec ops assignment. But Ari had never been one for the rules before, and it wasn’t unusual for her to take half the squad into any given mission. That she was following the regs told Ellie how worried the other woman was.

“What will you do when this is over?” She’d clearly been spending too much time with EDI; there was no way she’d just asked that.

A very tired smile crossed Ari’s face. “Sleep. When this is over, I’m going to sleep. Maybe for a hundred years.” The smile turned into a smirk. “Maybe for fifty thousand years.”

Elliot snorted. “I can just see you, fifty thousand years in the future, running around trying to warn the pyjacks and varren that the Reapers are coming for them!”

“Nah,” Ari said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She paused for several moments, and added, “Varren won’t evolve that far in fifty-k. But Boo? His people, on the other hand…” She let out one of the few genuine laughs Ellie had heard from her since the Alpha Relay incident. “And they’ll believe me, because Boo will survive and warn his descendants. And in fifty thousand years, the space hamsters will be the most evolved species in the galaxy.”

Ellie finally lost her composure and gave into her laughter, but a thought stopped her, and she turned to Ari.

“Do you think that’s what it’s like for Javik?”

“I’m sure it is, hag, but I need to get down to the CIC. Joker doesn’t know we’re going to Thessia, and you know he gets pissy about that sort of stuff.”

Ellie allowed herself a laugh. “Shut up. You just want to go flirt with your pilot.”

“Guilty as charged.” She shrugged.

She followed Ari from the loft and headed for her quarters, waving goodbye as Ari got off the elevator at the CIC. She hadn’t spent much time with James since they’d returned to active duty; it was time they retreated into her bed for a nice, long cuddle – possibly more.

"Strap in, Shepard. It's going to get rough!" Joker shouted, hours later as she stood behind him on the bridge, just after the shuttle departed for Thessia. Joker was doing his best to dodge a swarm of Harvesters. Ari and her team might already be groundside, but that didn’t mean the Normandy was in the clear. Ellie dashed to the spare seat meant for the navigator – it was where EDI used to sit before Ari had, among other things, given the mech an actual position on the ship and made it a part of the crew.

At the moment, the seat was empty; they had no navigator, nor a need of one with EDI installed on the ship, and EDI was down in the AI Core, processing the information she’d scrounged up from the Council's Chambers on the Citadel. According to the AI, they were within days of a workable virus. It was time to tell Ari, despite EDI's warnings.

She waited for Ari in the War Room once she was back from Thessia; but after seeing the utter defeat on Ari’s face, she couldn’t tell her that she and EDI had doubts. Now, more than ever, Ari needed to believe in the Crucible. If she lost that faith, Ellie wasn’t sure what would happen. There was a gaping chasm under Ari’s feet, and Ellie was afraid of what would happen when, like an animated character, Ari finally looked down and realized it. The tall, black-haired woman was bearing enough of the burden for saving the galaxy; Ellie could keep carry this one herself.

“Did you need something, Ellie?” Ari asked from the doorway.

“Just wanted to see how you were holding up,” she lied. Ari frowned, but didn’t call her on it.

“We just lost Thessia to the Reapers, and the information on the Catalyst to Cerberus,” she spat. “How do you think I’m holding up?”

Elliot reached out for her, but Ari shrugged her off. “Get everyone into the war room. We’re going to find out where the hell Cerberus has been hiding. It’s time we took this fight to those bastards!”

* * *

“Alenko, Vega, you’re with me,” Ari snapped when Traynor told them what she’d discovered. “The rest of you start thinking – wrack your minds for anything you could possibly know. Elliot, find those soldiers guarding the War Room – one of them had a friend that joined Cerberus. And would somebody find Miranda?” The last was more of a desperate plea – she’d been trying to convince her old friend to join them but she’d kept refusing, and then she’d dropped out of contact three days ago.

She ignored the censure on her cousin’s face; Ellie could bitch at her later. She was done playing games with Cerberus. She was more than ready to take the fight to their backyard. It was time to end this.

As quickly as she could, she loaded her small crew into the shuttle, and ordered Cortez to put them down in the courtyard. Both Reaper and Cerberus forces were fighting each other, and though she half expected they would, neither gave up their fight with the other when her small team arrived, instead turning it into a three-way battle – with her as the victor. The warm rush of power that always accompanied the use of her biotics didn’t have a chance to fade as she threw singularities into the field without pause.

It became apparent, as soon as they’d fought their way inside, why no one could reach Miranda.

“Find her,” she shouted, ignoring the concern on James’ face. What little grasp she had on her sanity was slowly unraveling as they explored Sanctuary, and the knowledge that Kai Leng was there, stalking one of her truest friends, was enough to set her over the edge.

Miranda had never cared about destroying Cerberus – at least not in the way that meant she’d sabotage something. But there had to be some sort of connection between Cerberus and her father – she’d said it herself. And then it became clear.

“Commander, take a look at this,” Kaidan said, pointing to a terminal he’d hacked. Ari looked at the screen and saw a man she had to assume was Henry Lawson, Miranda’s father, talking to the Illusive Man.

As his words sank in, she stumbled to a corner and retched. Hundreds of thousands of frightened refugees had been lured to Sanctuary under the pretense of safety, only to become test subjects so the Illusive Man could try to control the Reapers. He kept coming back to it, and while having something that powerful under control sounded tempting, it would only be an illusion. Any control anyone had was always an illusion. She mused on the possibilities, however, until they finally reached Miranda, Oriana, and their father.

She stood aside and allowed a battered Miranda to confront her father and rescue her sister; it was the least she could do for the woman that had brought her back from the dead.

“Thank you, Shepard,” she said, holding Oriana close.

“Miranda – and Oriana,” she added, as an afterthought, “I have a proposition for you. You know where the Illusive Man has his base, and I want to take him out. Would you care to be a part of that?”

Miranda looked between her sister and the Spectre. “I do.”

Once the three of them, plus Kaidan and James, returned to the Normandy, everything seemed to happen in fast-forward. Miranda confirmed the location of Cerberus’ base in the same breath that it seemed Hackett was telling her they were ready for their assault.

She felt she barely had a moment to breathe before she stood at attention in the comm room, nodding along with Hackett as he voiced his thoughts. Once they took out Cerberus, it would be time to take the fight to Earth, to end the Reapers once and for all.

Ari took Ellie and EDI with her, the latter at the AI’s suggestion, and wasn’t surprised that the mission hadn’t been quite as smooth as she would have hoped. That was becoming par for the course these days; in fact, she wasn’t sure a single mission had gone the way she’d planned from the day she’d stepped foot on the Normandy, three years ago, to see a snarky blast from the past in the pilot’s seat and her cousin standing beside Anderson in the CIC. She wasn’t sure how she felt about EDI’s little revelations as they hacked their way through the base, but she couldn’t say she was surprised the Illusive Man had figured out that Joker was a weak spot for her, even then. She’d been fond of him when they’d met as kids on Arcturus, after Mindoir, mostly because she appreciate someone who could make her laugh in the aftermath of losing everything but Ellie and Aunt Hannah, and that fondness had only grown over the years they’d worked together, leading them to where they were now, some sort of in-between. She wasn’t exactly sure what they were, really, but she was pretty sure they were _something_.

What was surprising was the VI’s revelation that the Catalyst was actually the Citadel, and she didn’t miss the rather pointed look that passed between the Normandy’s AI and its XO at the knowledge, and it was with that in mind that she stormed through the ship while Joker maneuvered them out of system. Instead of Ellie's quarters, she headed straight for the AI Core, unsurprised when she found the two with heads bent over a datapad.

"I think I've given you long enough," she said, face hard as she glared at her cousin. The AI wasn't important; EDI had rarely acknowledged Ari as her superior, refusing to be truly part of the crew, for all her insistence that she was. Elliot, however, she could berate for this. The two had wasted precious time working on whatever this was instead of helping her find the fucking Catalyst. Had they done so, the Catalyst might have been discovered before the Reapers took the Citadel to Earth and they might actually have had a real shot of winning this war.

"It's a back-up plan, baby cousin," Ellie said, stepping in front of EDI's mech, as though it would prevent the AI from chiming in. Ari ignored the familiar nickname and continued to glare.

Ellie sighed. "I know that you've been worried about the Crucible. What if it wasn't a weapon to destroy the Reapers, but something they planted? What if we couldn't get it to work? What if we fired it and the galaxy was wiped out anyway, because we couldn't control it? You've stayed quiet, but I know you, Arien. I know how much you care, not just about me, or the crew, or the ship, but about all the species in this galaxy, even the batarians."

Ari stiffened at the mention of the species that had been the bane of her existence since she was sixteen. The species she'd been too late to save, destroying most of them herself to save the rest of the galaxy from the Reapers.

"EDI approached me a week ago to give us another option and we’ve been working on that since. Finding out the Citadel is the Catalyst just means we needed to fine tune our plan a little."

"Spill," she snapped.

Taking polite turns, Ellie and the ship's AI explained their idea to her. From its conception, through the loss of Thessia, when everything had seemed its darkest, up through the modifications they'd just finished., taking into account what they now knew about the Catalyst and the Citadel. When they finished, Ari looked between the two faces, one mechanical, one human, identical in their joy, their success. Her cousin and her ship – EDI wasn't just an AI, she _was_ the Normandy, and for the first time Ari really believed that – cared about the galaxy enough to risk it all for a better plan. All Ari had to do was sell it.

Tears in her eyes, a smile beaming across her face, Ari swept human and mech into a tight, desperate embrace. "Thank you."

* * *

“This plan is insane. You’re talking about a major loss of life for what will never be anything more than a longshot.”

Ari looked at Ellie, who was frowning at the holographic images of Steven Hackett and David Anderson. She was inclined to agree with Ellie, not just because the redhead was her cousin, but because the plan was all but suicide.

“I don’t like questioning the brass,” she said, ignoring Ellie's snort beside her. Since when? it seemed to ask. “But Ellie’s right. How in the name of all that’s holy do you expect us to win with a plan like this?”

Hackett frowned at them. “Have you got another idea?” he demanded, his voice harsh. Ari looked at her cousin. Ellie was typing away at her omni-tool, her brilliant brain going a million miles a minute. And then she grinned.

“So, let me get this straight,” she said, looking up from the tool. “The Citadel has closed its arms, and the Reapers are attacking Earth, and the only way onto the Citadel is a giant beam that the Reapers are using – have I got it right so far?”

“That is what we’ve been telling you, yes,” Anderson said. “What’s on your mind, Shepard?”

“We’ll need a Mako and about ten hours,” she said. “We’re going to Ilos.”

“The Conduit,” Anderson breathed, hope dawning across his face.

“Joker can get us in, drop a small team in the Mako,” Ellie continued, her tool popping up pictures of the abandoned planet. "Just like the last time Reapers tried to block us from the Citadel, we can use the Protheans' back door and fight out way to the Master Control Terminal." She smiled, remembering the success of that strategy. "Just like last time," she repeated smugly.'

“It might just work,” Hackett said. “But how will we know when you you’ve made it?”

Ari looked at the hologram. “I can signal Joker on the QEC. Communication has come a long way since our last fight at the Citadel, and while we get the arms open, the fleets can come in to engage the Reapers. Combat drops onto the Citadel itself, as soon as the arms are open, to make sure we have plenty of our own forces taking down the Reapers on the station. Once the Crucible is docked, we can evacuate all the ground troops and get the ships out of there; we don’t know what the Crucible will do, and we don’t want to risk any more casualties.”

“It’s a solid plan,” Anderson said, turning to Hackett’s hologram.

Hackett frowned. “I’ll need to discuss it with the Primarch, the Dalatrass, and the Council. Stay where you are, Shepard, and I’ll be in touch. Hackett out.” He disappeared from view.

“Before he gets a chance to talk it down, have your turian call the Primarch and check in with the Council – if they’re even alive.” Anderson’s advice was solid, and Ari called for Garrus to meet her in the war room. “Anderson out.”

“You needed me, Shepard?” Garrus stood in the doorway of the comm room.

“I need you to call Victus, tell him we’ve got a new plan, before Hackett has a chance to.” Ari didn’t bother explaining the plan; she just needed Garrus to get Victus on the comm. She could explain the plan to both of them at the same time.

Garrus punched in a series of numbers on the keypad on the comm terminal, and Victus appeared in the holographic chamber. “Garrus? Commander Shepard?”

“Primarch Victus, you’ll be getting a comm from Admiral Hackett soon, to tell you about the plan Lt. Shepard came up with.”

Victus stopped her. “Hackett has already contacted me,” the turian said, and if it weren’t so hard to read turian faces, Ari would swear he was frowning. “I know what the Admiral thinks of this plan; but I’d like to hear the details from the person who came up with it.”

Ari turned to her cousin. “This is your show, you old hag.”

“Roger, baby cousin,” Ellie said. “Primarch, instead of leading Hammer, Shield, and Sword into a massacre, we’re proposing to send a small, elite team to Ilos to use the Conduit. The intel EDI retrieved from the Council says that it was never deactivated. In fact, it was left open in case a situation like this arose again, though its location and purpose were highly classified. That team can open the Citadel arms from the Master Control Terminal and signal the fleets. Drop the ground forces onto the Citadel itself and allow the fleets to engage the Reapers. When the Crucible is docked, we can evacuate all the remaining squads.”

“It’s a sound plan,” Victus said. “Hackett disagrees, but I can order the turian fleets to follow your command in this, Lt. Shepard.”

“Not possible,” Ari cut in. “I need her with me on Ilos. Lt. Shepard is the best hacker on my squad; we need her on the ground and on the Citadel.” Quick calculations on the capacity of the mako and her squad’s strengths led her to one conclusion. “However, if you are comfortable with it, my helmsman can coordinate the attacks from the Normandy.”

“Garrus?” Victus asked, and now Ari was sure he was frowning.

“Joker is a sarcastic shit,” Garrus said, nodding. “He’s not going to make any friends, but he’ll get the job done. He won’t let Shepard down.”

“Joker knows what’s at stake,” Ari said, frowning at Garrus’ description of his loyalty. “He won’t allow the mission to fail.”

“I’d like to meet this pilot before I entrust my fleet to him,” Victus said.

“I will alert Jeff that his presence is requested,” EDI said.

The silence stretched out as they waited for him. “You have a very human idea of discipline, if this is how long it takes a crewmember to respond to your summons,” Victus said after five or six minutes of waiting.

Garrus cleared his throat. “Sir, do you remember that joke about Alliance pilots we heard on Menae?”

Victus laughed. “The brittle bones joke? Wait – it’s a real pilot – your pilot?” he demanded, turning to Ari.

“Joker is the best goddamn helmsman in the Alliance – hell, probably in the Galaxy!” she said, hotly. “It wasn’t a turian pilot who made the drop on Ilos. It wasn’t an Asari pilot who got us through the debris around the Collector Base. And it wasn’t even a so-called normal human pilot that got the Normandy off Earth while the Reapers were attacking! So don’t you even think, for a moment, that Joker can’t do it.”

There was silence in the comm room for a moment, until Joker’s sarcastic tones pulled her attention to him, leaning casually in the doorway. “Gee, Commander, tell us how you really feel. I think there might be some batarians five systems away that didn’t catch that.” He pushed gently from the doorway and staggered into the room. “Of course, I’ve been telling you for years that I’m amazing; it’s nice to hear you telling others. So, want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Insubordination,” Victus muttered, but he was staring at Joker interestedly.

Ari reached out a hand and put it on his bare forearm. “I need a combat drop on Ilos,” she said, watching his face darken. “And then I need you to lead the fleet against the Reapers. I need the Normandy at the front of the assault, and I need you in command.”

“Commander, you know I have your back,” he said, frowning down at her. “This all sounds like a bunch of unnecessary orders. What’s really going on?”

“When she says ‘in command’, she means I will turn over direction of my fleets to you,” Victus said. “The krogan, turian, salarian, asari, quarian, and geth fleets would all answer to your commands. You will be responsible for all of it.”

Joker tipped her chin up, and she stared up at him, pleading him with her eyes. “You need me to do this, Ari?” he asked. Besides Victus, there was no one in the room who didn’t know about them, and she couldn’t care less what the Primarch thought of her relationship with her pilot.

“I’m taking the entire squad groundside on Ilos,” she said. “I need you in the air, guarding my back and getting me home safely. I need someone I trust, someone who has proven himself leading the fleets against the Reapers. Hackett is already trying to convince the other leaders to go with his original plan.”

Victus broke in. “Garrus, if you’re not absolutely needed on the ground, I would feel better with you on the Normandy, helping to coordinate the assault.”

Garrus looked to Ari, who frowned, but nodded. “It will make the others more comfortable,” she agreed.

“Thank you, Commander,” Victus said. “I know you have every faith in your pilot, but as the leader of my people, I cannot help but want one of my own most trusted men to assist. I’ll speak to the others. Hackett can lead the human fleets to their deaths if he wants, but the turian fleets will follow your plan.”

While they waited in the comm room for Hackett to contact them, Liara arrived to let them know she had received a highly encrypted message from Asari High Command; the asari fleets were hers to command. “I’ll have to stay on the Normandy, Shepard,” she said, apologetically. “It was hard enough for High Command to turn over command of our fleets to a human vessel; especially after the events on Thessia – and after the loss of the Destiny Ascension. They were insistent.”

Ari looked between Garrus and Liara. “I understand that I haven’t made many friends in the command structures of the other races, but the Normandy is still my ship. Both of you will follow Joker’s commands, or you can join your fleets and let the devil take the hindmost.”

“As you wish, Shepard,” Liara said, bowing her head. Garrus merely nodded.

The Dalatrass called to say that while she was still angry about the genophage, she accepted that Shepard’s plan was far more sound than the Hackett’s, and the salarians would follow her. “But rest assured, Shepard, I will hold you personally accountable if this plan fails.”

When she disappeared, Ellie snorted. “I will hold you personally accountable,” she mocked. “Honestly, if this plan fails, we’ll all be dead. What’s she going to do? Desecrate your grave?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Joker said darkly. The comm room was becoming crowded, with Wrex joining them to let them know the krogan had their backs – not that she really expected anything else from him, as the leader of his people. Similar promises of support came from the quarians and the geth.

Ari grew more frustrated with each supportive species; some of her most trusted squad mates were staying on the Normandy to keep the other races happy. In addition to Garrus and Liara Tali was staying on the ship as well. Finally, Traynor’s voice came over the comm. “I’m putting Admiral Hackett through, Commander.”

Hackett appeared in the QEC, his scarred face frowning. “Shepard,” he said, through gritted teeth. “You have unanimous support from the other fleets for your plan. The Alliance fleets will support you, as well. However, I have reservations about putting my fleets into the command of a flight lieutenant – especially one who has a history of mental instability.”

Ari’s face hardened. “Admiral, Joker’s so-called history of mental instability was manufactured by the Alliance to discredit him for refusing to back down about the Reaper threat after my death.” Warm fingers on her arm helped calm her ragged breathing. “Do not make me pull rank on you, sir. I abide by Alliance protocol because I respect my Aunt Hannah and David, but I am outside of your chain of command. In fact, as a Council Spectre, I outrank you. I have submitted to your leadership thus far out of respect for your friendship with Aunt Hannah, but I will not allow you to lead human fleets into a suicide run simply because you don’t like me. I will personally call the commander of every Alliance vessel if necessary, but Joker is leading this assault. The rest of the Galaxy is behind me, Admiral. You can get out of my way, or you can get run over, but I am not backing down!”

“The fleets are yours, Shepard,” Hackett growled. “As are the consequences. Hackett out.”

“I’ll call Mom,” Ellie said.

While Ellie tried to raise Hannah Shepard on the QEC, Ari turned to Joker. “Gather the crew in the conference room,” she muttered. “We’ll need to iron out the details. Then I want everyone well-rested and ready for the assault.”

He dropped a brief kiss on her cheek. “I’m on it, Ari. Deep breaths, babe. You’ve got this.”

He limped from the room, and the others followed as Hannah appeared in the QEC. “Elliot,” she said, frowning at her daughter. “Arien. I ought to have known the two of you were behind this. I’m starting to regret agreeing with Rebecca that the two of you should know each other.”

It was an old complaint, and one she made whenever the two of them had caused trouble – most notably starting with that three-hour call on their thirteenth birthday.

“Mom, it was my plan,” she said, stepping in front of Ari. “Ari has the political clout to pull it off, but I came up with it. Please don’t blame her.”

“To be fair, Aunt Hannah, it wasn’t Ellie’s idea to piss Hackett off. I did that all own my own.” Ari shrugged. “Old bastard had it coming, if you ask me. EDI’s pulled up some stuff on Hackett – Aunt Hannah, the man is dirty.”

Hannah Shepard laughed, her green eyes sparkling across the QEC. “Oh, Ari! You think David and I didn’t know that? We’ve known Steven had his hands in shady dealings since Saren Arterius destroyed David’s chances of becoming a Spectre. He funneled billions of credits into Cerberus through the Alliance; in fact, I’m almost positive he’s the ‘third head’ of the organization. It was always him, Henry Lawson, and Jack Harper running the show. But it was better that we keep him where we could watch him, than let him hide in the shadows like Harper. Look at what Harper got up to when he went underground.”

“Fair enough,” Ari agreed. “What we need from you, Aunt Hannah, is to keep him from screwing up our plan.”

“I can do that. We can’t get David off Earth, not unless that crack pilot of yours wants to make a rescue mission before dropping you on Ilos.”

Ari looked at Ellie, but Ellie shook her head. “We don’t have time, Mom. We’ve got the whole team in the conference room waiting on us, and after we get some shut-eye, we’re headed to Ilos. Call it a strong hunch, but I don’t think we’re going to have much time.”

“David will hold his own, girls, don’t worry,” Hannah said. “Are you sure your pilot is up to commanding all these fleets?”

“Joker can do it, Mom,” Ellie said, because Ari’s heart was in her throat at putting that much responsibility on Joker’s shoulders. “Sometimes I feel like he’s the XO around here, and not me, he’s left in charge so often. We trust Joker, and so do Garrus, Liara, and Tali. They’ve all seen what he can do. He won’t give up until Ari is home safely. Promise.”

“Steven said your judgement was blinded by your relationship with the pilot,” Hannah said, staring at Ari. “But the sort of man who would die before he left you behind is exactly who I want in charge of the fleets. He won’t forget the people in favor of the big picture.”

She paused, and then continued, her face troubled. “He’s not a leader,” she said, frowning. “And while that’s a good thing for his job, he has no command experience. He won’t consider the long-term consequences of his actions. On the other hand, if we don’t succeed, there won’t be much of a long-term for any of us to worry about. I’ll accept his leadership of the fleet, Arien Elizabeth, but only because I think the kind of reckless bravado he displays is exactly what we need to end this.”

“Thank you, Aunt Hannah,” Ari said. “He won’t let me down.”

“I love you, my girls,” she said. “If we fail, I want you both to know that no one could be prouder of anyone than I am of you.”

“Love you, too,” they both said.

“Shepard out.” Aunt Hannah disappeared, and Ari looked at Ellie.

“Ready?” she asked, and Ellie swallowed before nodding. “Then let’s do this.”

They walked, shoulders back, heads held high, to the conference room, where their friends, their squad, was gathered around the long table. Standing together, they took the head of the table, and Ellie punched in something on the console. A holographic rendering of the Conduit on Ilos popped from the empty space in the center of the table.

“Some of you might remember Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel,” Ari said. “Garrus, Wrex, and I drove the Mako through this Conduit to reach the Citadel after Saren and Sovereign closed the Citadel arms.”

She nodded at Ellie, who punched in something on her tool and the holograph changed from a view of the Conduit, to the relay on the Citadel. “We’ll be taking three makos through the relay. From the relay, we will make our way to the Master Control Terminal.” A route snaked its way through a map of the Citadel on the holographic display. “All communication with the Citadel has been cut off. We have to expect that we will encounter heavy resistance in the form of Reaper forces. But we don’t know what we’re going to find.” The display disappeared, and Ellie looked at her.

“I need volunteers,” Ari said, looking around the table at her friends. “Garrus, Liara, and Tali will be staying aboard the Normandy to help coordinate the fleets. Joker will be in command. Elliot will be leading one of the teams on the Citadel. I will lead another.” She took a deep breath and looked at the squad. “Kaidan, I’d like you lead the third, if you’re comfortable with that.”

Kaidan nodded. “Whatever you need, Commander.”

One by one, the rest of her squad volunteered. “Thank you, all of you. Samara, Grunt, Vegas – you’ll be with Elliot. Kaidan will take Javik, Miranda, and Kasumi. Wrex, Jacob, Zaeed – you’re with me. EDI, I want you to stay on the Normandy; I know you could help, but we don’t know what the Crucible will do. If the worst happens, I need you to take care of the ship.” She took a deep breath. “Everyone, dismissed. Get some rest. We’ll be at Ilos in ten hours, and I need everyone rested and ready to go.”

The crew dispersed, and Ellie left to arrange the delivery of the three makos they would need for their journey across Ilos. Alone in the conference room, Ari allowed her doubts to creep to the surface. They had a plan, they had the Crucible, and they had an amazing squad. But what if it wasn’t enough? Countless other races had tried and failed to defeat the Reapers. What made her so sure she could win?

“Commander, Jeff has instructed me to order you to bed before he has Doctor Chakwas declare you unfit,” EDI said over the speaker, and she laughed through her fears. Trust Joker to be monitoring her.

“I’m going,” she said, walking towards the elevator up to her cabin, where Ellie was waiting for her.

“Hey baby cousin,” the redhead said from her perch on the sofa.

“Thought you’d be with James,” Ari said, plopping down beside her and resting her head on Ellie’s shoulder.

“I’ll see him after the makos are aboard; Mom’s having three delivered in the next hour. I figured I’d spend this time with you.”

They didn’t say much, not after Ari produced the Peruvian whiskey. In silence, they drained several glasses each, both lost in thought. “Vegas is running a game in the card room,” Ellie finally said. “Garrus and Tali are off with the main batteries doing god knows what. Everyone is doing what they can to relax. But what if we fail?”

“Makos are loaded, Commander,” Joker’s voice came over the comm, cutting off whatever reply Ari could give her cousin. “Hitting the relay in five minutes, and then it’s ten hours to Ilos.”

“I should go,” Ellie said. “We’ll all need our sleep if we’re going to do this.”

“I love you, you old hag,” Ari said as Ellie reached the door.

“I love you too, baby cousin.”

Alone in her quarters, she killed the lights, letting the glow of the fish tank along the wall illuminate the room. From the bedside drawers, she pulled flannel pajama pants and a tank top, shucking off the fatigues and leaving them in a pile on the floor in favor of her comfortable pajamas. She’d barely gotten settled in her bed, the stars slipping by rapidly in the skylight over her bed, when the door slid open with a pneumatic hiss and her pilot staggered in.

“Joker?” she asked, staring. She might not have been shot down that night in Purgatory, but his acceptance of this whole thing was grudging, at best, and she hadn’t expected this from him.

“You shouldn’t be alone, Ari,” he said, slipping, fully dressed, into the bed beside her. She rolled over until she was facing him, where he lay on his back beside her, staring through the skylight.

“What about the chain of command?” she asked, cursing herself for bringing it up again.

“The whole galaxy’s going to hell; I don’t think we have to worry about being court-martialed. My career isn’t nearly as important as you,” he said, not looking at her.

She remembered Thane, and how she’d allowed herself to take comfort from him before they hit the Collector Base – and how he died. She didn’t want anything to happen to Joker. He was too important.

She reached out and gently tugged his ever-present cap from his head, dropping it on the nightstand at her back. She lightly ran her fingers through the mashed hair on his head, once, twice, three times, before she forced herself to pull her hand back to herself. “Sleep, Jeff,” she whispered. “If there’s still a galaxy tomorrow, we can worry about it then. I just – thank you for being here for me.”

She settled herself more comfortably, facing the wall, and tried not to react when she felt him settle behind her, one fragile arm resting across her waist, tugging her closer. “Sweet dreams, Arien,” he whispered into her hair.

'She lay there, listening to him breathing behind her, feeling his chest rise and press against her back with every breath and his arm tightening spasmodically around her as he drifted off. The last thing she saw as she closed her eyes, was his hat on her nightstand.

The nightmare returned, chasing everyone she’d lost through the vast forest on Mindoir, only to watch them be torn apart by the Reapers’ bright red beams as soon as she caught them.

She jolted awake, grateful she hadn’t accidentally hurt Jeff, who had rolled onto his back at some point and was snoring slightly. She sat on the edge of the bed, breathing heavily, trying to get her heart back under control as the dream’s final image burned into her retinas: the Normandy torn apart by the bright red beams, while the man behind her was sucked from the airlock, trapped in a combat suit that was leaking, grasping the tubes behind him as the ship broke into thousands of pieces behind him.

'She leaned heavily, elbows on her knees as she took deep, rasping breaths. The bed dipped behind her, and Jeff’s hand came to rest on her bare shoulder. “How long have you been having nightmares?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Since I woke up after Cerberus rebuilt me,” she answered. Gently, carefully, she allowed him to pull her back into the bed, one of his arms wrapped around her while her head rested softly on his chest, the starched front of his fatigues rough against her cheek.

“We’re going to make it,” he said, rubbing her arm comfortingly. “I won’t lose you again.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and she closed her eyes against the rising tears. “I promise,” he whispered hoarsely, his arms tightening around her.

“Commander, we have entered the Refuge System.” EDI’s voice broke through the silence that followed his roughly-spoken promise, and she forced herself out of the warm circle of his arms.

“I’d better get up to the bridge,” he said. Ari nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. She fought the urge to tell him how she felt; he knew already, and there was no reason to make it harder for him if he had to break his promise.

She pulled a mesh underlay from her armor locker and made for her shower while he walked on unsteady legs towards the door. In the archway that was her private office, he paused, pulling her towards him.

“Come back to me, Arien Elizabeth,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her. “That’s an order, Commander.” The arms tightened so much she was afraid he would dislocate his shoulders, but he bent his lips to hers, brushing them against hers with a gentleness that was a stark contrast to the iron grip he had on her waist. Before she could respond, he pulled away and buried his face in her long, black hair, breathing deeply. “I can’t do this without you, Ari, not again, not ever.”

“I promise,” she said into his neck, the stubble on his cheek brushing cheek. Without a word, he pulled her tags over her head, undid the clasp, and slipped the Victory Ring from the chain. He slipped it onto her left hand, his eyes never leaving hers.

He took a deep breath and stepped away, loosening his arms and trailing his hands over her sides as he went. “I’ll see you on the bridge, Commander.” He stepped out of the room and the moment the doors sealed with a pneumatic hiss, she sank, crying, to the floor of her office.

After a few minutes, she pulled herself together enough to take the hottest shower she could stand and then slipped into the mesh underlay, her fingers deftly twisting her hair into the large bun at the top of her head. Carefully, she put on her war paint, trembling fingers brushing the dark shadow around her eyes to try to hide the puffiness.

When she was done, she took the elevator to the armory and strapped on the ceramic plates that made up her armor, the white and red logo and stripes standing in stark contrast to the Alliance blue armor. Beside her, Ellie was strapping on her Alliance blue plates, and for a brief moment, the woman beside her wasn’t the war-toughened veteran, but the same girl who, at eighteen, had taught her how to strap those plates on. Singly and in pairs, the others trickled in, and everyone finished gearing up silently. There was nothing to say, after all; they all knew what rested on their shoulders.

“Into the tanks, people,” she ordered, and Ellie and Kaidan followed her to the elevator. The bridge had never seemed so far away, but they finally made it, and she took her customary spot between Joker and EDI. “Two clicks will be fine, Joker. We know where we’re going now.” He grinned up at her, and she knew he was remembering the last time he’d had to drop her onto Ilos. She allowed her hand to rest on his shoulder, her fingers tightening slightly.

“Five minutes, Commander,” he warned. She brushed his cheek with her gloved hand and he turned to kiss it briefly. “Get moving, ma’am.”

“It’s a bit disturbing,” Ellie said in the elevator, “that he can order you around, and still call you ma’am, while kissing your fingers.” Kaidan laughed, but nodded.

“Coming from the queen of the girl scouts, I’m not even going to bother to explain,” Ari said haughtily.

The elevator doors opened and Ellie and Kaidan headed off to their tanks. “Cortez, make sure you’re ready to pick us up,” she called.

“Yes, ma’am!” he called, and she waved to him as she hauled herself into the waiting mako.

She looked over her squad; Zaeed was loading his rifle, Kasumi checking her tool, and Jacob was staring off into the middle distance. She climbed into the driver’s seat of the tank and waited for the drop. “Team Hammerhead is away!” Joker said over the comm, and she grinned. Kaidan’s squad was rushing towards the ground in their mako. “Team Mako is away!” There went Ellie’s squad. She gripped the controls tighter. “Team Normandy is away!” The ground dropped from beneath them, and she tightened on the controls as the tank bounced on the hard ground.

“See you on the flip side, Flight Lieutenant!” she called.

The long, winding path weaving through the jungle was no longer overgrown, proving the Council hadn’t abandoned the planet after her ‘death’. An hour later, she saw the big, iron doors that had been closed against her last time she was here, standing wide open. She hoped Javik could stand to see the pods of his people along the walls, as they drove down the tunnel and towards the Conduit.

It was another hour for them to arrive at the relay. They climbed out of their tanks, and she and Kaidan stood by while Ellie typed rapidly on her tool, trying to activate it.

“It won’t stay open for more than five minutes!” she shouted, urging them back into their tanks.

“We’ll go first!” Ari called to the others over the comm. “Team Mako after us, and Team Hammerhead will bring up the rear! Let’s move, people!”

The tank bounced over the rough terrain, and she heard Kasumi mutter something about ‘and here I thought it was only dancing she was rubbish at’ before they were sucked into the mass effect field of the relay itself, and hurled through space. As soon as the mako came to a stop, she started shouting. “Everyone out! We’re in the direct line of fire for the other two tanks, and we need to be out of here before they come through!” They scrambled quickly out of the vehicle as Ellie’s mako hurtled through the relay and rammed into theirs. Ellie’s crew tumbled out in just enough time to escape the arrival of Kaidan’s.

“Everyone alright?” she asked. She grinned at the chorus of assents. “Good, cause we’ve got company!” She pointed to the wave of husks coming their way.

She had no concept of time, she never did in the middle of a fight, but she and all the others were running low on thermal clips, and all of the biotics were losing strength when they finally managed to clear a path to the elevator to the tower. She didn’t want to take any chances by leaving someone down at the bottom to watch their exit; unlike the Collector Base, she was determined that everyone was sticking together. Which is how all twelve of them ended up squeezed into the elevator like sardines in a can.

“Zaeed, if you don’t get your rifle out of my back, I will break your neck!”

“Kasumi!”

The ride seemed to last forever, and Jacob squealed in protest at Kasumi’s roaming hands at least three more times before they reached the top. As they flowed from the elevator, she switched on her comm to the Normandy.

“Joker, we’ve reached the Council chambers. We’ve hit some resistance, but nothing too bad; I don’t think they were expecting this.”

“Roger that, ma’am; the fleets are on standby and the Crucible is ready to launch on your command.”

The few Reaper forces they encountered on the long walk to the Master Control Unit were swiftly dispatched by the squad that had fanned out around her, and Ellie began her patch. The arms started creaking.

“Now, Joker!” she called, as cannibals, husks, and marauders began dropping down the walls.

“All fleets, the Citadel arms are opening!” Joker shouted. “Hitting the relay in five, four, three, two, now!”

Within moments, the Reaper forces outside the Citadel were engaged while she and her team scavenged thermal clips from the corpses littering the tower; the Reapers had hit here the hardest by the looks of it, and she was fairly certain that the dark blood drying at her feet belonged to the turian councilor – she recognized that particular shade of blue-black from watching it wash down the drain in her shower after Garrus’ injuries on Omega. It seemed like a lifetime ago. The fight continued around her as she cleared a path to the Master Control Unit, guarding Ellie and trusting her team to do the rest. It was imperative that Ellie make it to the terminal, get her patch in. A shudder rocked the station, and her feed crackled in her ear.

“Alright, Shepard, get your people out of there! The Crucible has been docked!” Hackett’s voice shouted over her comm, and Ari herded the squad to the elevator, picking off husks with minor shockwaves; she didn’t have the energy for anything stronger. Nearly everyone was on board when she heard Hackett shout again. “Nothing’s happening! It has to be something on your end!”

“Go!” Ari shouted to the crew. “I’ll fix it! Just GO! Cortez, get your ass up her to get them!”

She slammed the elevator closed and watched James beating on the glass door as he slid from sight. As soon as the elevator disappeared, the Reaper forces started to retreat, and while she managed to pick off a few stragglers, it wasn’t her primary objective. She took out the few she could, as she headed back to the Master Control Unit.

“Didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you, baby cousin?” Ellie asked, slipping from behind a brush.

“Of course not, you old hag.” She laughed, tossing a singularity at a lone husk while Ellie slammed three rounds into its head. “Not like I’ve got a clue how to jump start this damn thing. “The metal panel at their feet rocked, and they toppled over it as it lifted. The ceiling separated to allow them to pass through it and they were dumped in front of an oddly indistinct VI. “Who are you?” Ari demanded, and the shimmering shape resolved into the form of David Anderson.

“I am the Catalyst,” it said, borrowing the deep voice of her mentor.

“I thought the Citadel was the Catalyst,” she said. _Keep it talking,_ she could almost hear Ellie thinking from where she stood out of its direct line of sight, fingers flying over her omnitool.

It shifted from David Anderson and became Ellie. “No. The Citadel is a part of me.”

She wanted to scream, but held it in, just trying to keep it talking. “I need to stop the Reapers. Do you know how I can do that?”

It smirked, there was no other word for it, and changed shape again, appearing before her as Legion, even adopting its speech patterns. “It is possible, Shepard-Commander. I control the Reapers. They are my solution.”

 _Harbinger._ Son of a bitch. She and Ellie had been right.

“How do I activate the Crucible?” she demanded.

She did her best to distract it, letting it assume as many people as it wanted as it described what she was clearly supposed to see as two unappealing options: destroy the Reapers, and sacrifice EDI and the geth in the process, probably losing the quarians, as well, since the geth had been living in their suits, or control the Reapers, and give up her consciousness to replace Harbinger’s. She didn’t flinch when it became the image of her dead father, nor when it took on the appearance of Thane.

But then, the image shifted forms again, becoming the one person in the galaxy that wasn’t blood that she would still do anything for. And instead of a bowed back and uneven gait, this shining, glowing rendition of the man she loved stood tall, and walked towards her with a strong, purposeful stride. “There is another choice,” it said, and tears came to her eyes at the way the image in front of her stood straight and proud, used his voice to try to persuade her. “Synthesis.” The creature in front of her depicted the revolting idea of a utopia void of any diversity, made all the more horrifying delivered in the sharp, snappy tones she loved.

“Your time is at an end; you must decide,” it said, changing into Hannah Shepard.

Ellie pushed past her, nearly knocking her over. “Funny thing,” she said, addressing the image of her mother. “Synthesis or Control, because Lord knows you don’t actually want Ari to pick Destroy – but both of those options, they require an upload, don’t they? An upload you’d never, in a hundred thousand cycles, trust to QEC, or anything like it. No – you’d want that hooked right into the Reaper Core, of course. That’s what the Catalyst really is,” she added, disdainfully. “Harbinger might be your body in the same way that EDI uses that stolen mech, but – just like EDI – you’re really here, part of the Citadel itself, just waiting to try to shove your pitiful choices down someone’s throat. How close did the Protheans get, I wonder?” she asked, looking around. “Did one of them decide to control the Reapers, thinking it was for the best? How long did it take, out in dark space, before the poor, deluded soul was completely indoctrinated?” She shook her head. “But see, you forgot something,” she said, striding past it towards the blue-lit column on her left. She continued punching something into her tool, and then waved it over the blue light. “You forgot that when you hook something directly into the Core, you can’t control what we’ll do with that connection.” She smirked. “You never counted on us, and look,” she cried, pointing towards the massive Reapers that were falling still, gliding silently through space. “You forgot the kill switch.”

The face twisted in rage, but Ellie stepped directly in front of the image of her mother and waved her tool at it. “It’s over.” The image distorted, cycling between forms for a few moments, before finally revealing its true self, the red image of a Reaper, so like when she’d first talked to Sovereign, before that, too, flickered and the image died.

The fleets outside, seeing that the Reapers were no longer firing back, loosed the full might of their weapons into the dying gods, and the Citadel was rocked by the shockwaves of hundreds of explosions as the Reapers were blasted apart by the combined power of nearly every sentient species in the galaxy.

“It’s over,” she breathed, this time with a smile, but Ari shook her head.

“It’s only the beginning,” she said. “You were amazing!”

“Commander!” Joker’s voice crackled in her ear, and she pulled her cousin into a hug as she answered him.

“Alive and kicking, Joker!” she said, and she could hear his sigh of relief.

“Cortez is homing in on your location now, Commander. We’ll have you out of there in no time.”

A deep rumbling noise drew her attention away from the open space around her; the Reapers were falling into disarray as freighters from every species fired upon them, and behind her, in the junction where the Crucible had docked with the Citadel, red streaks of electricity were arcing.

"Move! _MOVE_!" Ari shouted, dragging Ellie away towards the very edge of the three-pronged platform. She closed her eyes and braced herself. The explosion washed over them in a wave of heat.

* * *

Hackett’s voice crackled over the comm. “All fleets, the Crucible is armed. Disengage and fall back to the rendezvous point. I repeat, disengage and get the hell out of here!” There were a few moments in which Joker thought that maybe he could get around it, somehow, and then, “That’s an order, Normandy!”

Garrus placed a hand on his shoulder. “Joker - Jeff - we have to go now,” he said.

“I know,” he said. “I just - I really thought she would make it.”

“She’d want you safe,” Garrus said, patting his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he agreed, slumping in the chair. EDI was silent. “Yeah,” he repeated, defeated.

“Normandy, this is the Kilimanjaro.” The voice was female, and sounded so much like Ari and Ellie’s that Joker immediately jerked to attention. “Flight Lieutenant, if you’re going after my girls, we’re right beside you.”

He wanted to cry, but he did what he did best instead. “This is your pilot speaking, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in the upright and locked position, we are going after the Commander! Vegas, Javik, Kaidan, head down to the shuttle bay. Cortez, fire that bear up and prepare for a quick and dirty combat drop on the Citadel. Doc, strap in the wounded – this is going to be a wild ride!”

A fierce expression crossed his face as he muttered to himself, “I am not losing her again!”

“Kilimanjaro, on my mark,” he called. “And thank you, Admiral.”

“No need to thank me, young man,” Hannah Shepard answered. “You’re not the only one who loves her.”

“Jeff, it’s time,” EDI said, and he grinned.

“Let’s make her dance, EDI!” he said. “Kilimanjaro, go!”

And they were off, dancing between Reapers, darting in and out of explosions. “I have Shepard’s signal!” EDI said.

“Home in on it, transfer it to the shuttle,” he ordered. “Let’s go get Ari!”

“Shuttle is away,” EDI said, and he watched its progress across his display.

“Come on, Vega,” he muttered, watching the progress of the three dots on the screen as they made their way through the structure towards the blinking dots that were Ari and Ellie. “Save her. Don’t let me lose her again.”

“Reading you loud and clear, Joker,” Vega said, laughing. “Coming up on some sort of platform. Hold on a second - Alenko, Javik, you seeing this?”

Joker felt like biting his nails.

“Holy shit, that’s the Commander!” Vega said. “Alenko, grab her, get her back to the shuttle. Joker, I got them. Tell Doc to prep the medbay for surgery and have Miranda ready.”

His heart dropped to his stomach, but EDI calmly said, “Messages are away. Ms. Lawson is on her way to the medbay and Doctor Chakwas is readying beds and medigel for the Commander and Shepard.”

“How bad is it?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“Fuck, man,” Vega said, forgetting, or not caring, that the line was open to the entire fleet. “Her armor is melted - MELTED, man! I don’t know how she’s still alive, but we’re almost back to the shuttle.”

“I’m tracking your progress,” Joker said, “but you need to get back to the ship. Whatever’s going on with the Crucible, it’s going to happen soon. The energy readings are off the chart!”

“Shuttle is pulling away from the Citadel now, Jeff,” EDI said, and he nodded.

“Joker?” It was Hannah.

“Admiral, did you read that?” he asked, switching his comm to private.

“Get my children out of there, Flight Lieutenant, that’s an order,” she said.

“Roger that, Admiral! We’ll send you coordinates as soon as we’re safe,” he said. “EDI, get us the hell out of here!”

As soon as they were rushing towards Earth, attempting to outrun the massive red wave that was pursuing them with terrifying speed, he jumped from the chair and ran as quickly as he could on his battered legs towards the elevator; the ship would survive and he trusted EDI to take care of her. He needed to see Ari. He’d made the wrong choice, once, and held the ship as more important than the crew, and that had gotten her killed. Never again. "Don't do this to me, Ari."

Through the glass of the medbay, Vegas was visible, pacing at the foot of one of the two occupied beds. Kaidan leaned near the foot of the other, Cortez standing beside him with his arm around the armor-clad marine. Just as he reached the doors, the Normandy lurched, and EDI's voice came over the comm, as modulated and restrained as ever. "Please prepare for an emergency landing."

Red streaks of lightning flooded the ship, immediately followed by the loss of the artificial gravity. His back smacked into the ceiling and he bit back a scream at the pain. "EDI! We're losing systems!"

There was no response. The hall went dark as gravity returned, the ship hitting something hard and solid with a screech of metal, before finally falling still. He turned towards the sound of shattering glass, and heard his name.

"Joker!" James turned towards him, and the spotlight from his rifle fell over him. " _Madre de Dios_ , Joker! You okay?"

"Did you just break the glass?"

"No power. Shepards need – fuck, Joker, I can't even tell you what they need. Doc and that Cerberus chick are doing what they can, but we need power."

The unspoken, _or they'll die_ , hung in the air.

"EDI?" He tried again, but was met with silence. Something was very, very wrong.

Using James as a support, he crawled over the ledge where the window to the medbay had once been, swallowing hard at the sight in front of him; black armor melted into flesh – it was worse, in its own way, than seeing her on that Cerberus table. At least then, she hadn't been able to feel it.

He limped over to her, reaching his hand out to touch her, make sure she was real, but there wasn't a part of her body that looked like it wasn't in pain, so he snatched his hand back.

James pushed the doors to the AI Core open, and they stood in the silent room. Joker shouldn't have been shocked that she was offline, but the lack of glowing blue light in the room was disconcerting all the same. His earpiece crackled.

"Joker?"

"Ken?"

"It's good to hear your sarcastic voice, Flight Lieutenant. Gabby and I are working on getting emergency power up and running. Think you could send Tali down?"

He was the only member of the crew that stayed on the ship who had access to the ground teams' earpieces. "Tali?"

"Keelah, Joker! Is everyone okay?"

"Ken and Gabby could use some help in Engineering. There's a maintenance tunnel in the AI Core, if you can get the doors open."

The next hour was spent trying to get as many people with tech experience to engineering. A loud cheer echoed through the ship when the lights flickered back on, and he tried to start the engine. It wasn't exactly like hot-wiring a skycar – he needed to hit a series of switches to reconnect the drive core to the ship's eezo supply – after they were ready for him.

"We're ready," Ken's voice came, this time over the ship's loudspeakers.

The Normandy wasn't technically made to be 'turned off'. Even when powered down, the drive core was still on. Traynor rebooted and rerouted the systems that went offline with EDI, and until the communications with the fleet were up, he was trying very hard not to think of the two women laying side by side in the medbay as the Doc and Miranda tried to surgically remove the ceramic plating from their bodies.

"All systems rebooted, Joker," Traynor said. "Let's see if she'll start."

"She's not an old Mustang, Traynor!" He closed his eyes and prayed to all the deities he could think of as he hit the buttons in perfect sequence.

The dim emergency lighting flickered, once, twice, before fading completely, replaced almost immediately by the brightness of full power.

"Engineering, how are we looking?"

"Drive core is fully functional, Joker. I don't know what happened, but I think she'll fly," Tali said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

"Shepard to Normandy! Shepard to Normandy!"

"Comms are working," Traynor said unnecessarily.

"We read you, Admiral," he said.

"My children?" He didn't know how to answer. "I told Ari that I would trust you with the fleets, because I knew you wouldn't let her die – not again. Don't tell me I was wrong."

"They need medical attention – both of them."

"We're getting communications from hospitals all over the planet; the ones in rural areas were primarily left alone. They're ready to take as many wounded as they can hold. We're getting a lock on your signal now, Normandy, and you'll be directed to the nearest facility." She dropped her voice. "Thank you, Joker, for bringing my girls home."

"Normandy out."

He couldn't accept her thanks, not until he knew that they'd be okay.

* * *

Her hair was uneven. If she were awake, he knew that the sight of it would drive her to tears; years of her Aunt Hannah forcing her to keep her hair short, because that was the professional thing to do when on a ship, had only reminded her of the fire that had destroyed the long hair she’d had until Mindoir. As soon as she’d been out of Hannah Shepard’s control, she’d started growing it. He remembered the feeds from Elysium, when her hair had come loose from its customary, military-approved bun, blowing around her face. She’d been beautiful, dirt-covered and shining with sweat and the most glorious thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.

Until she walked onto the bridge after the Reapers had begun their assault. Long black hair falling around her shoulders, the Alliance-issued undershirt showing off her arms - she’d been a vision. Those few weeks they’d spent trying to save the galaxy had reminded him that no matter what happened, some things were more important than the regs. Knowing that they could be killed any day was certainly motivation to do everything he’d always thought he shouldn’t.

The bruises were rapidly fading from her face; Cerberus cybernetics at work. Doc told him she would wake up any day, and he was desperately waiting for that moment. There were a thousand things he wanted to say to her, most of which started with ‘I love you, Arien Elizabeth Shepard’ - though some of those sentences ended with threats to kill her if she ever put him through this again.

The small, feminine hand in his twitched, and he looked at her face hoping her eyes would open. “C’mon, you can do it,” he whispered.

“Joker?”

Her voice was rough, scratchy from disuse, but it was there - _she_ was there.

“Hey, Commander,” he said, the words leaving his mouth before his brain could catch up - something he was pretty used to. “Taking down a Reaper on foot wasn’t enough for you, huh? You just had to go and piss off the talking one?”

She laughed, then, and immediately winced and started coughing. “Oh, don’t make me laugh, it hurts.”

He ran his eyes over her. “From what I can see, everything hurts.”

“You’re more right than you know,” she offered, her pale blue eyes opening slightly. “What are you doing here?”

“It almost sounds like you’re not happy to see me, Commander,” he teased, squeezing her hand gently. “We’ve been taking turns watching over you ever since you got here.” He didn’t tell her he was taking most of the time, and the others would relieve him for a few hours every day so he could grab some sleep; didn't mention that Ellie wasn't doing so well. The redhead's cybernetics weren't nearly as extensive as Ari's – though Miranda was working on fixing that. If the ex-Cerberus Cheerleader could bring Ari back from the dead, then she could save Ellie. As long as she didn’t get distracted looking for her girlfriend; no one had heard from Jack or her students since the Crucible had been fired, and it wasn’t looking good. They could all use some good news right about now. He pressed the button that would bring Doc to her with his free hand. “Doc should be here soon.”

“You don’t have to stay,” she managed, pulling her hand away to rub her throat. “I’m sure there are things you’d rather be doing on the Normandy.”

“Nowhere else I’d rather be, Commander.”

**Author's Note:**

> LadyA made several mentions of what we'll call inconsistencies with the basic plot of this story, and I feel like I should address them.
> 
> 1\. The relay on the Citadel wasn't destroyed when you came through it, and it never says in game that it was one of the things destroyed in the attack. I am going on the theory that it was kept quiet and active because of what happens during the Citadel DLC in the archives regarding the attack.  
> 2\. The 'ten hours' thing - that's what Joker says in ME1, and canonically, the game never explains how he gets from the Citadel to Ilos in ten hours, but is ready to lead the fleets immediately upon your trip through the relay. As such, I don't really feel like explaining it - meaning that I have no idea and I'm going off established canonical inconsistencies here, so I'm not going to fret over it. *handwaves* you will accept this as plausible.  
> 3\. Ellie's mention that EDI told her about the plan a mere week before. Despite relay travel times and what have you, Joker states pretty clearly that the Reapers attacked Tiptree two weeks before Thessia. The asari huntress responsible for his sister's death on Tiptree is already on the Citadel when you arrive the first time. Ergo, it is less than two weeks from Mars to Thessia. As best we could figure, Petri and I decided that the first game took about a month, the second was nearly a year, somewhere around ten or eleven months, and that the entire Reaper War was a matter of three-ish weeks. This is our personal timeline, insomuch as it makes sense to us, but you don't have to accept it. It IS the Torchsong canon timeline (we can even tell you dates), so it's the canon for this story.  
> 4\. Anything that appears to be a reference to something that makes no sense to you (the characters referring to Vega as Vegas, mentions of things that aren't strictly canon, etc) are references to things that have already happened in previous Torchsong one shots or will happen in future ones. This ending has been planned for years, and I chose to write it for the MEBB.  
> I hate superlong A/N and now I've left two, so I'm done. Feel free to bombard me with as many questions as you like!


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